


Broken Stars

by monotropauniflora



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Everybody Lives, F/M, Family Bonding, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 00:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11863248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monotropauniflora/pseuds/monotropauniflora
Summary: Cassian returns from a mission that left him feeling rather despondent. Noticing he has been withdrawn, Jyn decides to take action. The rest of the gang follows.





	Broken Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted to my tumblr before I had gotten an AO3 account.
> 
> This combines two headcannons. One is that, at some point, Jyn describes their family in the same way that Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch) describes his. The other is that Galen and little Jyn would fold origami stars together and keep them in jars. I am not sure if paper is actually a thing in the SW universe, but let’s pretend it is.

Jyn did not like it. In fact, she hated it. She hated how Cassian appeared so numb after his return. He had shut himself away in his quarters, arely speaking. Kay was not much help. She had tried needling him for details about Cassian’s last mission.

“That is classified, Jyn Erso. You should know better than to ask.”

The others had noticed it, too.

“I haven’t seen much of Cassian since he got back. Have you?” Bodhi asked over an unappetizing tray of glop. “It has been three days and we have hardly spoken.”

Bodhi wasn’t as good at hiding his hurt as Jyn and the fear of their small circle crumbling was clear on his face. Chirrut chewed on his food thoughtfully before answering. “Even a successful mission can be unsuccessful.”

“You know that none of us understands what you mean by that.” Baze stuffed another scoop of gloop into his mouth, pulling a face as he did so.

“My wisdom is wasted with you,” the guardian joked. His husband simply scoffed and returned to his food.

“What did you mean by that?” Bodhi’s voice was quiet, the concern evident on his face.

“Ask Jyn. She knows.”

Before anybody could ask Jyn anything, she was already standing.

….. 

She didn’t bother to knock. Pressing her elbow into the button, she waited for Cassian’s door to slide open. He was laying face down on the bed, but shot up when he heard his door, hand instinctively darting to the place on his hip that normally held his blaster.

“Jyn? What are you—is that paper?”

She barely spared him a glance before plopping on the floor, spreading out her materials.

Kay stirred in the corner where he had been sitting.

“Jyn, I suspect you are aout to waste valuable resources. Am I correct to assume the paper was illegally obtained?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“… No.”

“Good. Now help me cut these into strips, about this big.” She held up two fingers, spacing them about a centimeter apart.

“What are you doing?” Cassian asked, perching himself on the edge of his bed. His features looked tired and worn. Jyn felt her chest clench upon seeing the dark circles under his eyes.

She returned to the task at hand, shrugging his question off. She began to carefully crease and tear the paper. It had been a while since she had done this, but her fingers still remembered. After what could possibly pass as a sigh, Kay took a sheet and began cutting strips with precision.

“I still think this is a horrible waste. What good is this paper going to do when it is all torn up?”

“Shut up, Kay.” Jyn was uncomfortable enough sharing this part of her past without the droid’s unending criticism.

She could feel Cassian’s eyes on her as she worked. Her father had shown her how to do this when she was little. It had been years since she filled her last jar, and the first one she set on Cassian’s floor did not quite turn out. But the second one looked as beautiful as the first paper star Papa had placed in her hand.

She worked in silence. By the sixth star, Cassian slid off his bed, legs crossed in front of him on the floor. He picked one up and studied it.

“Stars?” He asked, rolling it gently between his fingers.

Jyn nodded. “I used to make them back on Lah’mu. My father taught me.”

Cassian continued to observe. Jyn’s face relaxed as she worked, her fingers quick and confident as she folded, wrapped, and pinched.

 _Stardust._ The memory of Scarif drifted back to him.

_“Because it’s me,” she had said._

Tentatively, he picked up a strip, running the paper between his fingers.

Jyn caught sight of this from the corner of her eye. She slowed down her movements, allowing each step to be observed.

It took six misshapen lumps for Cassian to finally get it right.

A quiet knock in the doorway grabbed their attention. Bodhi stood, caught off guard by what he saw. Slowly, he stepped into the room. Jyn shifted closer to Cassian to make room for the pilot.

“What—what are you making?”

“Paper stars, it would seem,” Kay supplied. He had run out of paper to slice and was attempting to organize the strips into a pile.

“How do you make them?”

So Jyn showed him. Bodhi was a natural. His first star looked better than Cassian’s fifteenth.

They sat and they folded.

“So this is why nobody was at dinner,” Baze said from the doorway, takin in the scene before him.

“We brought food.” Chirrut produced dinner rolls from somewhere deep in his robe. “We couldn’t smuggle anything else out. Not without making a mess or getting caught.”

The pair stepped in, closing the door behind them.

“What are you doing?”

Jyn passed the blind man a star, bringing an immediate smile to his face and the words “show me how” to his lips.

It took some guiding at first, bur Chirrut learned quickly. Baze, on the other hand, gave up on his third star. He was the first one to fall asleep that night, stretched out in a corner. Bodhi was second, curled up under the ledge that served as Cassian’s desk. One by one, the blankets from Cassian’s bed were spread out on his drowsy companions.

Kay powered down for the night, which left only Cassian and Jyn sitting by a respectably sized pile of puffy white stars. Jyn scooped up a handful of the stars and leftover strips. With no better place for them, she dumped the collection on top of Cassian’s desk.

“Will you be staying, too?” The question was quiet on Cassian’s lips.

“Do you want me to?”

He passed her a rough grey blanket, standard issue.

 _Why does he have so many blankets?_ Jyn thought to herself as she spread it out next to the bed.

….

Much later, long after the lights had been shut off, she heard Cassian whisper.

“I don’t deserve this.”

Jyn sat up slightly, looking up at where she knew the bed to be, but unable to actually see anything.

“I have done a lot of things I am not proud of.”

“Nobody in this room is perfect.” Her voice was soft. It felt much too loud in the black surrounding them. “But this is our family. It is little. It is broken. But it is _ours_ and it is still good.”

She heard him shift in his bed and heard the soft rustle of fabric as he stretched his hand down towards her. Clumsy in the darkness, her hand found his.


End file.
